The Depression as Depicted in Art, Literature and Pop Culture. True or not?

[Shangas]

I did a bit of poking around.

The artist who moved to Los Angeles in the 1940s was Nat King Cole. He moved into a house in what was then, a predominently white neighbourhood. The KKK stuck a burning cross on his front lawn, and the local home-owner's association told him that they didn't want "undesirables" moving in. His reply was, and I quote:

"Neither do I. And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I'll be the first to complain."

The musician who rented the train was Duke Ellington. He rented a train with three private carriages to transport himself and his band-members, so that they wouldn't have to confront the racism in the South during the 1930s.

 

[sheeplady]

Regarding neighbourhoods that were "segregated", either by mutual choice or by law, I remember another story about a famous black artist (again, I forget the name...I'm so sorry. He's really famous, though). This was after the Depression, I think it was in 1948 or something. He attempted to buy a house in Hollywood, California or somewhere in that neck of the woods. He bought the house, and moved in, or was on the point of doing so, when I believe, the real-estate agent told him words to the effect of:

"We're worried about undesirable people moving into our neighbourhood" (probably meaning blacks).

The new homeowner said: "I'm sure you would be. If I see any, I'll let you know".

I've heard that story about Nat King Cole (I believe his daughter told it during an interview) but instead of the real estate agent it was after they moved in from the neighborhood organization. Another con for neighborhood organizations.

The plain fact is that neighborhoods and schools today are still segregated. Not by law and often not by choice and it tends to happen in areas where the area is quite impoverished. Up north we don't tend to have busing integration laws to my knowledge. (Up north, in the largest cities we do have Magnet schools and other attempts to integrate students across a city often at the middle or high school level, we don't have specific rules about busing from neighborhoods to ensure integration.) The way that school districts are set up in NYS often result in all-white and all-minority school districts right next to each other- because one school is in the suburbs and one is in the inner city. It's not actual segregation, but it's defacto segregation that's supported by our society.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Busing was abandoned, for the most part, by the '90s because it didn't work. Nobody liked it, black or white, and it made very little long-term difference in the quality of the education given the students. The Boston busing crisis of the '70s only managed to rip neighborhoods apart and left scars that still haven't fully healed.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I did a bit of poking around.

The artist who moved to Los Angeles in the 1940s was Nat King Cole. He moved into a house in what was then, a predominently white neighbourhood. The KKK stuck a burning cross on his front lawn, and the local home-owner's association told him that they didn't want "undesirables" moving in. His reply was, and I quote:

"Neither do I. And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I'll be the first to complain."

California was a harsh place when it came to racial matters, despite the fact that the show-business industry tended to be a lot more open-minded about race than the general public. The war helped change things by bringing the races together in the workplace -- one of the most important defense operations in Southern California was the Pacific Parachute Company in San Diego , co-founded by the black comedian Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. Pacific Parachute operated thruout the war with an integrated workforce as required by Executive Order 8802, but went even further than the law required by integrating its management as well, all the way from the office staff to foremen on the factory floor. The plant was held up in the press as a national example of what American industry should be, and made a lasting impression on those who worked there.

 

[Shangas]

California was a harsh place when it came to racial matters, despite the fact that the show-business industry tended to be a lot more open-minded about race than the general public. The war helped change things by bringing the races together in the workplace -- one of the most important defense operations in Southern California was the Pacific Parachute Company in San Diego , co-founded by the black comedian Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. Pacific Parachute operated thruout the war with an integrated workforce as required by Executive Order 8802, but went even further than the law required by integrating its management as well, all the way from the office staff to foremen on the factory floor. The plant was held up in the press as a national example of what American industry should be, and made a lasting impression on those who worked there.

I'll just leave this here...

 

[sheeplady]

Busing was abandoned, for the most part, by the '90s because it didn't work. Nobody liked it, black or white, and it made very little long-term difference in the quality of the education given the students. The Boston busing crisis of the '70s only managed to rip neighborhoods apart and left scars that still haven't fully healed.

Here we have busing that allows students from all over the city to choose their schools (as opposed to mandating who goes where) but it's pretty ineffective as the demand for the best school is very high. I know that there are several places down south were busing is still mandatory- with some kids being sent clear across a city as early as elementary.

 

[JollyGreenSlugg]

G'day folks,

A very interesting book which describes the impact of the Depression in Australia is 'My Brother Jack', by George Johnston. It tells the story of a suburban Australian family, from the point of view of the younger son. It describes the gradual spread of job losses and unemployment, with the protagonist being a teenaged lithographer's apprentice, who supplements his wage by writing newspaper articles under a nom de plume. He later turns to this full-time and survives well enough, while many around him struggle. With the return to full employment brought about by the Second World War, he becomes a war correspondent. It is loosely based on George Johnston's life and experience.

It paints a vivid picture of life in Melbourne from the end of the First World War until partway through the Second World War. Very much worth a read.

The author was born in 1912. When I read it in 1989, I was in my final year of secondary school. At the time, I lived with my grandmother in suburban Melbourne. She was born in 1910, and I asked her many, many questions about the era. She lived in the suburb of Northcote, about four miles from the central business district of Melbourne. She walked into the city each day, and changed her clothes in a toilet in the municipal gardens, to work on the biscuit counter of a large department store, before doing the reverse home. That way, she saved the tram fare, which made a difference. She was always very cautious with money, and told me plenty of stories about Depression life. She agreed that 'My Brother Jack' painted an accurate picture.

Cheers,
Matt

 

[Shangas]

G'day folks,

A very interesting book which describes the impact of the Depression in Australia is 'My Brother Jack', by George Johnston. It tells the story of a suburban Australian family, from the point of view of the younger son. It describes the gradual spread of job losses and unemployment, with the protagonist being a teenaged lithographer's apprentice, who supplements his wage by writing newspaper articles under a nom de plume. He later turns to this full-time and survives well enough, while many around him struggle. With the return to full employment brought about by the Second World War, he becomes a war correspondent. It is loosely based on George Johnston's life and experience.

It paints a vivid picture of life in Melbourne from the end of the First World War until partway through the Second World War. Very much worth a read.

The author was born in 1912. When I read it in 1989, I was in my final year of secondary school. At the time, I lived with my grandmother in suburban Melbourne. She was born in 1910, and I asked her many, many questions about the era. She lived in the suburb of Northcote, about four miles from the central business district of Melbourne. She walked into the city each day, and changed her clothes in a toilet in the municipal gardens, to work on the biscuit counter of a large department store, before doing the reverse home. That way, she saved the tram fare, which made a difference. She was always very cautious with money, and told me plenty of stories about Depression life. She agreed that 'My Brother Jack' painted an accurate picture.

Cheers,
Matt

I've heard of that book. Wasn't it made into a movie? And no, I don't mean "My Boy Jack" about Rudyard Kipling's son, starring Daniel Radcliffe.

 

[wahine]

I don't know if another book was mentioned here: I enjoyed reading A stone for Danny Fisher by Harold Robbins.
The depression isn't the main topic, but it's a well written family story in the time of the depression.

 

[TomS]

My father was a *depression kid*, and he still uses a cash budget as a result of the experience. Credit is a bad word with him, and he still keeps money hidden in the attic. His father was a factory worker in Connecticut who lost his job early. He ended-up working a CC camp building roads in rural Maine, and sending money home. The extended family shared an apartment, and the living conditions would be considered Spartan at best... People sleeping on floors, and what have you.

My Mom only has vague recollections of the era, but her mother was very bitter over the experience. Her family was middle-class, and owned a small diner in rural Kansas when the depression hit. They lost everything... the business, their home, everything. They were still struggling when WWII came along, and my grandmother got her first permanent job since the depression. She worked in a defense plant as a *staker*, hammering fuses into 500 lbs. bombs.... a real "Rosie".

 

[Benzadmiral]

. . . As far as the vast mass of the Northern public was concerned, they really didn't think much about race -- because away from the big cities, they didn't have a lot of contact with African-Americans. In 1930 the overwhelming majority of the black population lived in the South, and those who lived in the North were focused in the major cities. It was very rare for an ordinary white person in a small Northern town to encounter any African-Americans other than Pullman porters. Out of sight meant out of mind -- their attitudes weren't so much actively racist as they were "gee, I never thought of that.". . .

My mother was a young girl in about 1927 when her family moved from Saskatchewan, where her father had worked for the railroad, to Florida. The porter on the train was the first black person she'd ever seen.

She also never talked very much about the actual Depression. She graduated from high school in about 1934 and went to nursing school. Before that they lived in rural Florida near Orlando. The main thing she said she learned when she first lived in Florida: When you get up in the morning, shake out your shoes. Scorpions, you know.

 

[John in Covina]

California was a harsh place when it came to racial matters, despite the fact that the show-business industry tended to be a lot more open-minded about race than the general public.

It can be said that most of the people in California came from some place else. As people relocated such as during the Depression they brought with them the intolerances that were prevelant where they came from. It was quite bad in Las Vegas. One difference was in the South, blacks were working in jobs that they could not work in in Vegas. There is a video I believe is called "the Real Las Vegas" from the history channel maybe, that had a chapter that really goes into the racial aspects of Vegas. Eye opening.

 

[rjb1]

Extrapolating back from my own experiences in the fifties and sixties in both the North and South, I doubt that people got along (race-wise) better in the 1930's than they did later. I think that any Hollywood movies that imply that are just revisionist-history/wishful-thinking.
As Lizzie said above, people lived almost totally separately in many places in the North, in her case in Maine, in my case in Michigan (suburb of Detroit). When I was a young kid I never saw a black person except on the rare occasions that we went "downtown"to Detroit itself. There were no laws demanding it, it was just a matter of preference and custom, and it seemed as rigid as law, at least as far as the practical effect goes.
Moving South (Nashville, TN), when my father changed jobs, there was no noticeable difference except for the topography and architecture. Still no integration at all, and as far as most people existed on a day-to-day basis, we (different races) could have been living on different planets. And there were no Hollywood-style Southern sheriff's or KKK members enforcing it, either. It was by custom and preference, just as in Michigan. Even if there were laws about that situation, no one could have quoted them. It just didn't come up.
I spent the first third of my K-12 education in the North and the latter 2/3 in the South. In both cases I never had even one black person in my class.
It's just hard to believe that things were one way in the early part of the century, got magically better during the Depression, and then turned back again later.

 

[Stanley Doble]

On the race question: They used to say, in the south they will let you get close but they won't let you rise up. In the north they will let you rise up but they won't let you get close.

Whenever times are hard and money is scarce, people start to resent anyone they see as taking jobs away whether it is foreigners, other races, or just someone from out of town.

About the depression. I have read a lot about it, watched movies and documentaries and talked to older people and relatives who lived through it. I must caution you, there is a lot of false information around. People living at the time saw things much differently than you might think. The only way to get at what people really thought and did, was to go back to original sources written at the time. Some of them will certainly surprise you. I know they surprised me, and as I said, I thought I knew what was going on but I didn't.